Sales of GT3-spec cars and other manufacturer-based machinery conforming to the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship’s GT Daytona class have been a surprisingly positive element during the 2014 season. That trend is expected to continue into 2015, which is in stark contrast to what P2 manufacturers are bracing for next season.

New P2 coupes from Honda Performance Development, Ligier and ORECA could offer the TUDOR Championship’s Prototype teams a faster package to take the fight to Daytona Prototypes, but as HPD Vice President Steve Eriksen suggests, the overwhelming success by DPs this year has impacted new P2 sales in North America.

“I think it’s very damaging to not have the Balance of Performance right,” he said, referring to the 7-2 DP/P2 win tally through nine rounds. “That has really made a singular impact on potential P2 participation in the TUDOR series. It’s also the single biggest factor which will determine where P2 cars race globally. The series has been trying to balance the cars, but it is still not in a state where a person is swayed to the P2 side. I’m glad they’re working on it. They need to keep working on it. They need to have a sense of urgency because it’s having an effect on manufacturers like HPD.”

The performance differences between both cars have been thoroughly chronicled this year, and IMSA has done an exceptional job at bringing P2s and DPs together. Despite those efforts, the 7-2 DP win record is hard to ignore.

At the point in the year where teams are considering which package stands the best chance at winning in 2015, Eriksen says it’s hard for P2 manufacturers to make a compelling argument for their product while DPs continue to win the BoP war.

“We’re definitely seeing more interest coming out of Europe for our new coupe than we are here in the U.S.,” he explained. “We’re in the business of selling racing cars, and you can only do that in the regions or markets where customers know they have a fair chance of being able to win. This is ultimately about Balance of Performance in the TUDOR series, and they hold the key to how the cars perform. We are very confident in the ARX-04b (coupe) we have coming, and have to rely on the series to ensure the [BoP] will be where it needs to be.”

So far, only Extreme Speed Motorsports has signed up for the ARX-04b, and it’s unclear whether ESM’s coupes will spend the 2015 season in America, in the World Endurance Championship, or a mixture of both. Deals for Andretti Autosport to field an HPD P2 coupe recently fell through, and Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, which is keen on expanding its operation beyond the IndyCar Series, has had two potential P2 deals go south in the past month.

Onroak Automotive has its new Ligier JS P2 coupe for sale, and as Oak Racing founder Jacques Nicolet told RACER, the French team is optimistic the car’s debut this weekend at Circuit of The Americas will convince American teams to place orders for its prototype.

“When we decided to take part in the TUDOR Championship with OAK Racing’s entry of a Morgan-Nissan LM P2, and then from the Austin round, with a Ligier JS P2-HPD, we were perfectly aware that it would be very hard to balance the performances between DP and LM P2, and more specifically during the races, given the conception differences between these two types of car,” said Nicolet. “Today, we’re convinced that these differences, namely in terms of [safety], can lead certain teams to choose our Ligier JS P2, and the work done by IMSA to balance the performance as best they can allows us today to consider in very positive light the future of our Ligier JS P2 in the United States.”

Both companies hope to take deposits for their respective P2 coupes in the coming weeks and months, although Eriksen conceded, “We need some of the people kicking the tires and sniffing around to commit to buying a car and place orders.”

Will the dominance of the DP platform continue to stifle P2 sales as the TUDOR Championship heads into its offseason? Without an uptick in P2 results at COTA and two weeks from now at the Petit Le Mans season finale, Prototype could become a decidedly Daytona Prototype affair once the Rolex 24 at Daytona gets under way in January.